<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/business/economy/trump-trade-policy.html?emc=edit_tnt_20170224&nlid=46745373&tntemail0=y&_r=0" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class="">https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/business/economy/trump-trade-policy.html?emc=edit_tnt_20170224&nlid=46745373&tntemail0=y&_r=0</a><o:p class=""></o:p></div><h1 style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 24pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Trump Is Off to a Slow Start on Trade Promises<o:p class=""></o:p></h1><p class="byline-dateline" style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="byline">By <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/binyamin-appelbaum" title="More Articles by BINYAMIN APPELBAUM" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span class="byline-author"><span style="color: blue;" class="">BINYAMIN APPELBAUM</span></span></a><o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="byline-dateline" style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">FEB. 24, 2017 <o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="story-body-text" style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">WASHINGTON — President Trump keeps firing verbal broadsides at Mexico and China, but so far his new administration has not acted to keep specific campaign promises about trade policy.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="story-body-text" style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Mr. Trump did not declare China a “currency manipulator” on his first day in office, as he had vowed, nor has he after his first month. Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, said on Thursday that his department was conducting a standard biannual review of the currency practices of China and other trading partners.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="story-body-text" style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Mr. Trump also has not initiated the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada, something he promised to “immediately pursue.”<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="story-body-text" style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">“There’s definitely a huge gap between rhetoric and reality,” said Chad P. Bown, a senior fellow and specialist on trade policy at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="story-body-text" style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Mr. Trump made trade one of his signature issues during the campaign, excoriating what he described as failed policies that have allowed foreign countries, notably China and Mexico, to profit at Americans’ expense. And he has not changed his tune since he moved into the White House.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="story-body-text" id="story-continues-3" style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">“Take a look at Nafta, one of the worst deals ever made by any country having to do with economic development,” Mr. Trump told the cheering crowd on Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference, held just outside Washington. “It’s economic undevelopment, as far as our country is concerned.”<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="story-body-text" style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Mr. Trump has fulfilled one campaign promise on trade, signing an order <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/23/us/politics/tpp-trump-trade-nafta.html" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class="">to withdraw the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership</a>, a unsigned deal that the Obama administration negotiated with Pacific Rim nations but had not submitted to Congress for approval.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="story-body-text" style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">But the absence of clear action on China and Mexico is striking, both because Mr. Trump’s language remains so bellicose and because the administration has moved quickly to keep many of the other campaign promises that it made.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="story-body-text" style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The “<a href="https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/_landings/contract/O-TRU-102316-Contractv02.pdf" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class="">Contract with the American Voter</a>” that Mr. Trump announced in October has proved in most respects an accurate guide to the first month of his presidency.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="story-body-text" style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Mr. Trump has nominated a conservative judge to the Supreme Court and announced a freeze on federal hiring. He has reversed some Obama-era regulations and sharply shifted the government’s policies on immigration. The White House is pressing Congress to approve a new health care plan and overhaul the tax code.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="story-body-text" style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Trade policy has emerged as perhaps the most notable exception.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="story-body-text" style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Mr. Trump’s views on trade diverge widely from the mainstream of the Republican Party, more so than on any other issue of economic policy. And some Republicans were quick to warn Mr. Trump against <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/p/protectionism_trade/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="More articles about protectionism." style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class="">protectionist</a> measures, fearing they could damage American economic growth.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="story-body-text" style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">“The main point I wanted to convey is that regardless of what action the incoming president takes on trade, he and his advisers should consider the effects on agriculture,” Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, declared last month after meeting with Robert E. Lighthizer, Mr. Trump’s choice to be chief trade negotiator. “I expect the new administration to work hard to maintain existing markets for Iowa and other farm states’ exports and open new markets as well.”<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="story-body-text" style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Another farm state Republican, Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, this week celebrated the 200th anniversary of the publication of David Ricardo’s economic theory of comparative advantage, which shows that trade between two nations benefits both. “It’s still brilliant & beautiful,” <a href="https://twitter.com/BenSasse/status/834889293764124673" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class="">Mr. Sasse wrote on Twitter</a>. He suggested in a second post that parents should read Ricardo to their children.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="story-body-text" id="story-continues-4" style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Mr. Trump said during the presidential campaign that he would declare China a currency manipulator on “Day 1” of his administration. He reiterated that commitment in his “Contract with the American Voter,” which said, “I will direct the secretary of the Treasury to label China a currency manipulator.”<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="story-body-text" style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">And on Thursday, Mr. Trump reiterated his longstanding view of China in an interview with Reuters. “I think they’re the grand champions at manipulation of currency,” Mr. Trump said, adding, “We’ll see what happens.”<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="story-body-text" style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">But Mr. Mnuchin had already made clear hours earlier that the administration did not intend for anything to happen, at least immediately.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="story-body-text" style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">In a televised interview with CNBC, Mr. Mnuchin said that China’s currency practices would be evaluated on the same schedule as those of other American trading partners. The Treasury publishes biannual reports on April 15 and October 15.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="story-body-text" style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">“We have a process within Treasury where we go through and look at currency manipulation across the board,” he said. “We’ll go through that process. We’ll do that as we have in the past. We’re not making any judgments until we continue that process.”<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="story-body-text" style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Specialists in currency policy say that they see no evidence that China is suppressing the value of its currency to increase exports, as it did in previous decades.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="story-body-text" style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The White House and the Treasury Department did not respond to requests for comment.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="story-body-text" style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">If the United States determines that China is manipulating its currency, a step the Treasury last took in 1994, the government would seek to reach an agreement with China, but could eventually impose tariffs on Chinese imports.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="story-body-text" style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The administration is also moving slowly on its pledge to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement. The White House must notify Congress 90 days before it begins renegotiation of a trade agreement. The Trump administration not provided such notification.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="story-body-text" style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Mexican government triggered its own 90-day clock at the beginning of February, but officials are happy to watch and wait.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="story-body-text" id="story-continues-5" style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">“We are not in a hurry to change anything,” the Mexican economy minister, Ildefonso Guajardo Villarreal, told reporters on Thursday, noting that his counterparts in the United States have yet to “define their objectives.”<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="story-body-text" style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">One reason for the stuttering start may be the paucity of administration officials. Mr. Trump has said that Wilbur Ross, his nominee for commerce secretary, will lead the renegotiation of Nafta and play a major role on trade policy. But Mr. Ross is awaiting Senate confirmation. A vote is scheduled for Monday.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="story-body-text" style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Senate Finance Committee has yet to schedule a hearing on the nomination of Mr. Lighthizer, a Washington lawyer, as chief trade negotiator.</p></body></html>